Travel Tip: Food Events Where You Can Meet the Farmers

Using local ingredients is commonplace at a lot of restaurants these days. But if you’re really smart, you’ll make sure to meet the people who grow your food, not just the ones who make it.

Food festivals are no longer just about big tasting tents with expensive wine and food. Many of them actually celebrate the local farmers who you wouldn’t necessarily get to meet otherwise.

Washington’s San Juan Islands has the Great Island Grown Festival that runs for 10 days in October. You get to see how a local shellfish farm operates, and even visit a farm to learn the whole process from raising to butchering to preserving the meat.

The TerraVITA Food & Drink Festival in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, brings the food growers to you. So, you might be sitting across the dinner table from the farmer, rancher, or even the cheese maker involved in your meal.

If learning where your food comes from is important to you, definitely check out something called Outstanding in the Field. It’s an event all around the country where you literally have dinner on a farm, and it’s hosted by the farmers themselves.